AUDIT DEFENSE

The auditor does not ask if you complied. They ask you to prove it.

Proof is documentary or it does not exist. Two kinds of auditor come for an ABA practice, the Medicaid program integrity auditor and the HIPAA regulator, and both open with the same request: show us.

Three audits that are already underway

The federal sweep

Federal auditors are reviewing state Medicaid ABA programs one by one. In every state audited so far, all 100 sampled enrollee months contained at least one improper or potentially improper claim, and recommended refunds now exceed $123 million combined. The findings are documentation and credentialing, not fraud.

The state recoupment

When a federal audit finds improper payments, the state refunds the federal share and then recovers from providers. Indiana began re auditing the same dates of service and recouping directly. A finding against your state becomes, in time, a demand against you.

The HIPAA file request

A single patient complaint or a reported breach opens a federal inquiry, and the first letter asks for your policies, your risk analysis, and your training records. Enforcement history shows the fine is rarely for the incident. It is for the program that was not there.

Every one of these begins with a records request, not an accusation.

WHAT YOU GET

How ABAWiser protects you

Three layers of readiness, built and maintained before any request arrives.

Payor Rules Library

You cannot be surprised by a rule we are watching.

The rules an auditor measures you against, collected and maintained: manuals, billing policies, credentialing requirements, tracked to the dates they take effect. Findings live in the gap between what the rule said and what your file shows.

Contract and Credential Vaults

Nothing expires quietly.

Staff credentials, supervision status, enrollments, and contracts, held current and tracked. The most common audit finding in this industry is a credential or supervision lapse nobody was watching.

Audit Response Center

The file exists before anyone asks for it.

Service history, authorization linkage, supervision events, and billing integrity, kept in a state where a records request is answered in days. The auditor who receives a clean file early writes a different report than the one who waits.

Delivered today through the fractional and advisory engagements, with the platform maturing underneath. When you engage ABAWiser, this is what gets built around you.

THE FLAGSHIP

The ABAWiser 7 Elements Program

When an auditor asks to see your compliance program, the recognized standard is the seven elements published by the HHS Office of Inspector General. A standing program is the difference between a review and an excavation.

1Written policies and procedures
2A designated compliance officer
3Training and education
4Effective lines of communication
5Monitoring and auditing
6Enforced standards and discipline
7Prompt response and corrective action

The program module is in development now, alongside the live ABAWiser HIPAA module, which covers the other auditor: policies, risk analysis, and training records are exactly what an OCR letter requests. I am taking a small number of early operators into the Medicaid program as it builds. An operator who starts now meets the records request with a functioning program and the documentation to prove it ran.

Become an early operator

Starts with the same free 30 minute scoping call.

THE ESCALATION

A records request is never the end of it

Audit findings compound, and the ladder only runs one direction.

1

The desk review

A sample of claims, a request for the supporting records. What the file shows in this first pass decides whether the review closes or widens.

2

The extrapolation

Findings in the sample are projected across your full claim history. A handful of documentation gaps becomes an overpayment figure covering years.

3

The recoupment and the corrective action plan

The demand arrives with a repayment schedule and a mandated program you now build under supervision, on their timeline, at your expense.

4

The referral

A pattern the auditor reads as knowing becomes a referral, to the state licensing board, to the Medicaid fraud control unit, to federal enforcement. The records question becomes a legal matter.

At the top of this ladder you are in enforcement, and it belongs with healthcare counsel. Everything ABAWiser does happens below that line: the rules watched, the credentials tracked, the program standing, so the first records request finds a file that closes the review instead of widening it.

Get ready before the request arrives.

Thirty minutes, no charge. You describe the structure, the payers, and the states you actually operate in. I tell you where the exposure sits and what standing ready would involve.

Book a free 30 minute scoping call
Or write to tzvi@abawiser.com

ABAWiser provides research, analysis, and compliance advisory services. We are not a law firm, we do not provide legal advice, and no engagement creates an attorney-client relationship. Where a question requires a legal determination, working alongside your counsel is part of the work.